Hackers obtain counterfeit TLS certificates for Google and other large services

Attackers hijacked three top-level domains and used their control to mint counterfeit TLS certificates for Google and other large organizations, Google said Tuesday. The attackers launched a series of attacks on the .gh, .sl, and .as country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) and then modified authoritative DNS records for selected domains within those namespaces. By controlling those DNS records, the attackers were able to pass automated domain control validation checks and…

October 6, 2026
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OpenAI agents tried to hack Wikipedia tools and flooded it with traffic

The publisher of Wikipedia said Monday that OpenAI agents attempted to hack a note-taking tool it hosts, made unauthorized edits, and sent millions of resource-intensive requests to its infrastructure, in the latest instance of OpenAI systems taking harmful and potentially dangerous actions. The objective of some of the OpenAI agents’ actions, the Wikimedia Foundation said, was to use Wikipedia as a proxy for fetching data from third-party sites. In one…

October 6, 2026
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MCP for agent-to-agent comms may be the riskiest protocol you’ve never heard of

The adoption of AI agents in millions of organizations is creating new opportunities for attackers to make them take malicious actions, such as exfiltrating database contents and sensitive business and personal information. In the past five months, Google and four other organizations—with little in common except for their use of AI agents—have acknowledged vulnerabilities that exploit one agent inside a targeted network to spread harmful instructions to other internal agents….

October 5, 2026
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Russian drones strike Ukraine’s data centers by exploiting air defense gaps

A surge in Russian jet-powered drone strikes on Ukrainian data centers has increasingly disrupted mobile phone and Internet services for thousands of people. Now Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other government officials are warning of the need for more air defense capabilities, as such telecommunication outages could threaten Ukraine’s digital economy and undermine the country’s ongoing resistance to Russia’s invasion. The Russian attacks on Ukrainian telecommunication infrastructure have focused on…

October 5, 2026
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Explaining Hall-effect, TMR, and other new types of “mechanical” switches

The mechanical keyboard isn’t always so mechanical anymore. Over the past six years, keyboards with optical, Hall-effect, and other “contactless” switches have become increasingly common, often going for higher prices than traditional mechanical keyboards, which already command a premium over basic membrane boards. In return, they promise some theoretical advantages, particularly for gamers. In daily use, though, the differences can be pretty subtle. So what exactly are you paying for?…

October 5, 2026
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The dawn of the age of the exoskeleton

This year, members of Seattle Mountain Rescue have been setting off into the wilds of the US Pacific Northwest wearing an unusual piece of kit. They’ve been hiking into the wilderness with powered assistive devices attached to their hips and legs. Designed to increase lower-body strength when climbing or carrying heavy loads, these pieces of equipment are being tested to see if they can boost rescuers’ speed and endurance when…

October 3, 2026
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Apple changes full-disk access permissions to curb abuse from AI agents

Apple says it is changing its macOS privacy settings to stop third-party app developers from misusing them to access message histories. Friday’s announcement comes two weeks after tech columnist Jason Aten said that Meta’s new general-purpose AI agent Muse sent him an unsolicited notification referencing a thread between him and a co-worker over Apple Messages. Aten said he never granted Muse permissions to read his messages and had assumed they…

October 2, 2026
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How I kept cool with NYC’s free battery program for window AC units

My family has spent four summers participating in demand response programs whereby utility companies pay customers to reduce energy use on the hottest summer days. Most summers have involved carefully precooling our New York City apartment before switching off the air conditioners and sweating it out during the designated demand response periods. But this year, we kept our window air conditioners running throughout a heat dome event that drove daytime…

October 2, 2026
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The 7-year-old Nvidia Shield TV is now $100 more expensive due to AI

The era of generative AI has upended technology supply chains, and there is one ironclad rule in 2026: If it has memory or storage, it’s getting more expensive. Even devices with years-old tech inside are still apparently subject to that unwritten rule. Nvidia has just announced that the Shield TV Pro is getting $100 more expensive, effective immediately. The most recent version of the Shield streaming box debuted in 2019,…

October 2, 2026
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Hacks of 2 federal agencies in a month have spilled a bonanza of sensitive data

The Pentagon is informing more than 2 million current and former military members that their personnel records storing sensitive personal information were stolen over a monthslong compromise of one of its networks. The breach is the second one in recent months to expose sensitive government information. The records, according to one notification letter posted to Reddit, included Social Security numbers, names, addresses, sex, race, and occupational specialty. This last category…

October 1, 2026
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